UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVES said that they had made contact with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels yesterday, as Western and Arab states along with Turkey jointly voiced support for a united, peaceful Syria.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comment on “direct contact” with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels came despite the United States having designated the group as terrorists in 2018.

“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters, without specifying how the contact took place.

While Blinken and other diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad, and 12 years after Ankara’s diplomatic mission was shuttered early in Syria’s civil war.

Ankara has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the northwest, financing armed groups there, and maintaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.

In a joint statement after the meeting in Jordan, diplomats from the United States, Turkey, the European Union and Arab countries “affirmed the full support to the Syrian people at this critical point in their history to build a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”.

They called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process”, with respect for human rights.

“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.

The head of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in the country’s northeast, on Saturday appealed on X for Kurds “to adopt a favourable position toward the Syrian dialogue”.

UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen urged participants in the Jordan talks to provide humanitarian aid and to ensure “that state institutions do not collapse”.

A Qatari diplomat said Friday that a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials for talks on aid and reopening its embassy.

Unlike other Arab states, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Jordan that the bloc, Syria’s biggest aid provider, is “interested in rebuilding and reconstruction of Syria”.